


Twenty-four Years

by Lexigent



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 09:58:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6074985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://allofmyheart.dreamwidth.org">allofmyheart</a>, for the prompt, "Twenty-four years, The Doctor and River, not sad please." </p><p>Twenty-four years is a long time to be around someone, especially if you're not used to time passing in a linear fashion. It's strange, too, for two time travellers who've never quite met in the right order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-four Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allofmyheart](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=allofmyheart).



Twenty-four years is a long time to be around someone, especially if you're not used to time passing in a linear fashion. It's strange, too, for two time travellers who've never quite met in the right order.  
Two weeks in sees them on the floor of the TARDIS, trying to puzzle out their relative timelines. River has finished scanning the diary into the TARDIS memory banks, and the Doctor is at present trying to get the TARDIS to match it up with what's already in there. 

The TARDIS bleeps and gives him blank screens. 

"This could take a while," he says and turns away with a sigh. 

"Well, we've got time," River says, with just a hint of bitterness in her voice, and the Doctor has to look at his feet for a second. Behind him, the screen flashes pink, green and finally, blue. 

"Or maybe not," River says. He turns to the screen and curses under his breath. "You stupid thing," he yells, banging on the console, "just once, just bloody once..." 

It's no use – the screen goes white and then black. 

"Loose wire, maybe," he says, "I'll see if the screwdriver..." He kneels down and examines the wires underneath the console. 

River smiles at the sight and just says, "I think she's jealous." 

The Doctor turns around with raised eyebrows. River gives an overdramatic shrug. 

"I've spent more time with her than with anything else, for all the good it's ever done me," he grumbles, and the TARDIS gives an angry beep. River presses her lips together, clearly trying very hard not to laugh. The Doctor lowers himself to the ground in front of where she's sitting with her journal with a grimace. 

"Well, in the absence of co-operative machinery, why don't we do this the old-fashioned way?" 

"Old-fashioned?" 

"Well, you know. Comparing notes, actual notes, on paper, you don't need ." 

"You take notes?" River's genuinely surprised. 

"On occasion. There's only so much you can fit into a physical memory, even time lords have their limits. I probably should do it more, save me falling for the same trick twice..." 

River looks up, mischievous expression on her face. "Or your time machine going wrong?" 

"I never read manuals, manuals are boring. I always end up where I need to be, anyway." 

There's no conviction behind his words, and River really needs him to stop talking right this second, so she pulls him in for a quick kiss. "Go on then." 

They cover the walls in sellotape and copies of journal pages and scribbled notes and drawings he didn't even want to show her, but she just laughs fondly and then tries to figure out where they went in the sequence. It takes them another two weeks to arrange it into the correct order – or what they assume is correct. There are a few details that neither of them can pin down exactly.  
It looks like a work of art when they're done, and they both take a step back. Their hands find each other and neither of them can say who reached out first. 

"It's beautiful," River says. 

"Yeah," the Doctor replies, voice catching in his throat. 

They look at each other, neither sure what to say, what to do next, where to go from here. River finds words first. 

"Is this the longest you've ever stayed in one place? In one time?" 

He nods, holding her gaze firmly. He's got used to doing that. It's still difficult, but he's getting better at it. 

"How are you finding it?" She cocks her head. He opens his mouth, unsure of what she what she wants to hear. 

"Unusual," is what he settles on. 

She moves closer and kisses him, then, and he kisses back, grateful that at least he won't have to do any more talking. They disengage and look at one another in a daze, and then River turns around and asks, "So, what exactly is the deal with this last night on Darillium then?" 

"How do you mean what's the deal?" 

"I mean..." She runs a finger along the console. "I mean, if at some point in the next twenty-four years, we took your, you know, time machine, and went elsewhere, and then brought it back to the exact moment we left, would that be a problem?" 

He considers. "You'd need to be exact, I think. And she's temperamental, as you've seen." 

"True. Worth a shot, though?" 

"In a few years' time, maybe." 

"You'll get bored. You always get bored." 

"That's not why..." Hold her eyes, he tells himself, steady now, this is important. 

"That's not why you what?" 

"That's not why I... do what I do." 

"You're not made to stay in one place for too long," she says. The bitterness is palpable now. 

"No. No." he says. She bites her lip and looks at him, expecting him to finish the sentence. 

"Travelling is all I know, yes, but that doesn't mean it's right, or that it's what I'm supposed to do, or that I can't do anything else. It just... it's what I do. Did. Because now I won't do it for a while." 

"Twenty-four years is a pretty long while." To not do something you clearly love, for my sake, is what she doesn't say, but he can hear it all the same. He covers his face with his hand. 

"I knew a man who waited ten thousand years for the person he loved." 

"That's a pretty long while," she says again, with a note of genuine surprise this time. 

He nods. "And he didn't even have two hearts. Just as well, when you come to think of it; more hearts, more love, but also more pain..." His voice trails off. Deep breath. 

"I hear Darillium has a rich history," he says, "much of it forgotten. Buried, one might say." 

River smiles with a gleam in her eyes. "You don't say." 

"Might stop you from getting bored while we wait for the TARDIS to -" "Get over herself," River shouts, and there it is, there's the woman he fell in love with in the first place, full of adventurous drive, going to get what she wants and the devil may care. 

"Where do we start?" 

"Right outside the door," he suggests. "I believe there's caves underneath where we are, great for starting an exploration." 

"Well then," she quips and drags him out the door before he has time to think of a response.


End file.
